Montpelier

I’m in the world againwithout my mother or fatherwho seem more and morelike Russian dolls, as if I couldunscrew my mother’s headand then the slightly smallerfather’s headand then my brothersand sisters and me and finallythe family unassembledas we are meant to be, as in the firstdays before the planet earth,when God was still gas,wasn’t even a wave yet, a pieceof coral, an eye hidingin the head of a fishthat would, in one million years,be able to see on its own.I’m walking in the snowbecause there’s snow on the ground.I’m thinking about snowand brains in brainpans.I’m thinking about you and yourhands, your voice, and how it’s exactlythe voice of everything warm.I’m loving you as I used tolove older boys in my neighborhood,the shade of themand the violence of them,the nunchucks and the silverythrowing stars of the mouthand above all the quiet of theirbodies, how they could appear,a tremble of dark lightand pollen—that kind of quiet.If only we could bring them allback to life. I have this thing I keepdoing with Band-Aidsand the third smallest knife I own.I know you know how it feelsto be a blister, all that bloodand tissue and poison turning intoa kind of ultimate, dominantpressure, as if a diamond were beingformed. That’s what my bodyhas been getting at,working for—why it’s beenrenting out its extra rooms,saving up, going forward,marking its calendar like an Adventmade out of the broken glassof a cockpit, the long strings of silkthat make up your arms,which are also made of water.See how it’s O.K., I can’t even die rightwithout warning you. I know—I’m in Montpelier, the greathigh seat of Vermont, the treesare all green and the embarrassedghosts of mosquitoes,dressed in glittering nail polish,are coming to take me all the way home.

Matthew Dickman is the author of five poetry collections, including “Wonderland,” which comes out in March. He lives in Portland, Oregon.​